In a multiphase chemical reaction where immiscible liquid reactants are involved, the dispersion of one of the liquids is converted into fine droplets to enhance the surface area to increase the reaction rate. In order to achieve the same physical dispersion is commonly used. However, this process requires enormous energy and capital cost.
Multiphase chemical reaction is involved in many areas such as chemical reaction, solvent extraction and ultrafine particulate separation from gas stream by liquid droplets.
Such problem can be further exemplified by citing downstream processing of a microbial fermentation processes. The various processes used for the actual recovery of useful products from fermentation or any other industrial process are called downstream processing. The cost of downstream processing (DSP) is often more than 50% of the manufacturing cost, and there is product loss at each step of DSP. In addition, the product is either present in the cells or in the medium or both.
Liquid-liquid extraction is one of the widely used processes for recovering fermentation product. In liquid-liquid extraction process, one of the liquid (normally the substrate) is in continuous phase filling the whole extraction column and flowing in one direction. The second liquid (normally the solvent) is in finely dispersed phase and flowing in the opposite direction. A fine dispersion is required to make the higher surface area available for the purpose of efficient mass transfer from one phase to the other and which is a challenge today. Only available process to increase surface area of disperse phase is physical dispersion, especially by atomization. Atomization involves capital cost of expensive atomizer and external pressure increases running cost of the process, thereby rendering the process energy intensive and costly.
In general liquid-liquid extraction, a solvent will be atomized to generate small droplets of solvent for creating more surface area and for atomization through atomizer more energy required, which may not industrially feasible for high volume low value products.
Applicant has made an effort to increase the surface area of one of liquid droplet of dispersion liquid to make liquid-liquid extraction process more energy efficient. Ongoing preliminary experiments indicates that the method can be efficiently used in separating ultrafine particles from gaseous phase by dispersion ultrafine liquid droplets by condensing a vapor in a system without involving extensive energy.